Knox County is set to hold a public hearing on December 16 at 6 p.m. at the Knox County Memorial Theatre. The purpose of the meeting is to reassess the maintenance cap for the North Branch of Ford Creek, as part of the county's responsibilities to inspect and maintain ditches.
According to a video from the commissioner's November 6 meeting, Rob Clendening, district program administrator for the Knox County Soil and Water Conservation District, informed commissioners about statutory limits on how much the maintenance fund for each county-maintained ditch project can accumulate. "Just because of increases in inflation, rate increases in cost of materials, labor, equipment, operation, even things like mowing and spraying on these ditches, we're finding that the caps that we have for maintenance on those are not adequate at this point," he said.
Clendening further explained that the county can revisit construction costs for each project on its sixth anniversary. The North Branch of Ford Creek's anniversary will occur in 2025. The county engineer's office can recommend raising the maintenance cap based on current construction costs.
Deputy County Engineer Clint Cochran said that estimates could be updated based on original projects. He noted that this particular ditch was constructed in 1977 and would cost an estimated $285,000 to rebuild. Cochran mentioned that the county is allowed to set a new maintenance cap at 20 percent of this new construction estimate, or $57,192. He added that activities such as spraying, mowing, and digging to maintain the ditch exceed the old maintenance cap, with $25,000 needed just for ditching.
Cochran also highlighted that no maintenance has been performed over the past two years due to exceeding the maintenance cap limit allowed. Furthermore, he indicated that 122 parcels have been assessed as their properties drain into the watershed. Staff from Soil and Water Conservation District are researching whether some other parcels should be assessed or if some current assessments should be excluded. The assessment is based on acres; it is fractionalized so if a property has 100 acres but only 10 acres drain into this watershed, only those 10 acres are assessed.
